|
I somehow managed not to write a Playing God column
last month. I believe it had something to do with me
being a lazy bum, a rather unfortunate habit which
I've picked up recently. Luckily this month I've been
doing a little better. I've even done enough world
development this month that I can actually write a
column about it instead of doing some cheezy filler
piece!
If you're a regular reader of my column, you know that
my current world development project is actually just
a continent which I'm developing for a world for a D&D
game in which our old group of characters has become
gods over a new world. If you're not a regular reader,
you now know because I just told you.
I came to the recent realization that this is the
perfect thing for me: all of the fun of creating
places and races, and none of the work of coming up
with storylines and managing players! It's like GMing
Light: Great Taste, Less Work. Or something like that.
Seriously, though, I've always loved coming up with
countries and worlds, but I've always hated running
games in them. On the rare occasion that I come up
with a good story, the players come up with some way
to totally mess it up. Now, however, I can come up
with this cool continent, hand it over to the GM, and
enjoy. My handiwork ends up in a game, but the players
are someone else's problem.
There's only one problem that I've encountered so far,
and that's that it's not supposed to be ME making this
continent, it's Tanataria, goddess of bards. There are
a few differences between us (besides the obvious,
which is she's a fictional character and I'm a real
person). The main one causing a problem with the
continent is the fact that I don't care about the
people who would be living there, but Tanataria
certainly would.
As a good goddess, my character wouldn't want her
subjects to suffer unnecessarily. As a patron deity of
musicians, she'd want her land to be a haven for
musicians, entertainers, and artists of all sorts. On
the other hand, as a patron deity of adventurers who
fondly recalls her mortal days and the trouble she
used to get into, she wants her continent to be an
exciting place. That means that in addition to fun
areas to explore, there's a need for adversaries.
What's a goddess to do?
I'm trying to avoid stereotypical "good" and "evil" in
this continent. I get so sick of reading role playing
source books and seeing races that are "good" and
races that are "evil". The "good" races are always
cute or beautiful, while the "evil" races are nasty
and ugly. Please, don't insult me! Good and evil
shouldn't be based on your species, and a person
shouldn't be able to tell your alignment by your
appearance.
I like to think that everyone is born neutral.
Actually, we're all born selfish when you think about
it - we're concerned with our own well-being and
nothing else. But for conversation's sake, we'll say
that we all start out neutral. Our opinions of others
are formed by our parents, our religion, what sort of
entertainment we partake of and how that medium
portrays people and things, and of course, our
interaction with the world around us.
Theoretically, if, as a child, I was tormented by lots
of blonde children, and my parents told me that
blondes were evil, and my entertainment consisted of
blonde jokes, I might grow up to believe that
blondes are evil and stupid and must be wiped out.
But I wasn't BORN as an evil blonde-hater, I became
that way because of my experiences with blondes and
others' viewpoints of blondes.
However, in the end it all comes down to CHOICE. Even
though I was tormented by blondes and given nothing
but negative examples of blondes as a child, as an
adult I could still be open-minded and choose to judge
each blonde that I met throughout my life based on his
or her own actions and merit, rather than
automatically discounting them based on their hair
color. I'm sure that each of us knows at least one
person who was raised by parents with a certain amount
of prejudice, and yet still managed to grow up as kind
and open-hearted. We are all capable of rising above
indoctrination and thinking for ourselves.
I believe, therefore, that races in fantasy settings
should be given this same opportunity. All orcs should
not be considered evil . . . there should be tribes of
good orcs as well. There should be good people of
fiendish descent and evil people of celestial descent.
By mixing such things up, you keep the players (or
readers) on their toes. When people can't make an
assumption on someone's alignment based on their race,
they actually have to think, and it makes things more
interesting.
So, as far Tanataria and I, we're going to fill the
continent of Kol-Numara with people free to make their
own alignment choices. Sure, there will be groups of
people which tend more towards good or evil, but there
will be many exceptions to that tendency, even a few
high-profile ones. And of course, there will be the
usual monsters who like to eat people, because
everyone needs a little guilt-free slaughter every now
and then.
Tune in next month, when I may be less moralistic and
more interesting! One can only hope . . .
|